Freezing commanders is by the way always the most stupid thing to do."Let's freeze our tactical mastermind so he can teach no one from his experience! And the best part is we don't have to explain all that fancy new technology! And they don't need time (awake) to adapt tactics or create new ones."

The good thing about battlesuits (and Tau'va propaganda) is: Thanks to engram chips and holograms anybody could be in that fancy suit.

You can't really dig that deep into most scifies, as for example you'll have to explain why they don't use robots and nuclear weapons(not even "moderate ones", like neutron bombs or small tacticals with only few kilometers blast range) for most fighting. And even if they do explain it, it either doesn't make sense or it's stupid as duck.

But on the subject of freezing commanders, I suspect It might have to do more about morale than anything else. But also the Tau have very short life spans compared to anything else in the galaxy, having the option to ask what would the best strategists, tacticians and persuaders in your history think about given subject is very beneficial. It's also not just about having a brilliant person available for a debate, to some degree you'll always have to rely on an authority, identifying the best people for a job can be a problem. Another problem it might solve is corruption of educational process, this might be a less of a concern since the galaxy is constantly at war, so most new ideas can be tested properly.

Though I realize what I wrote is mostly an argument for freezing people and using them as reference for evaluating information, not for using them as commanders in the field years after their combat experience was relevant.

Last edited by Gragagrogog on Jul 09 2017 05:01, edited 1 time in total.

With regards to the markerlights, I certainly hope they stick with the idea that a mark on a target doesn't vanish as soon as one unit fires at it. If they stick with the current table idea though, it could certainly do with a rework.Another idea would be to trade the markerlight hits in for for certain effects that stick with the target unit until the end of the turn, but that would certainly have been too complex for an index, and may be too complex for 8th ed even once the codices arrive to fill it out a bit.

Gragagrogog wrote:You can't really dig that deep into most scifies, as for example you'll have to explain why they don't use robots and nuclear weapons(not even "moderate ones", like neutron bombs or small tacticals with only few kilometers blast range) for most fighting. And even if they do explain it, it either doesn't make sense or it's stupid as ****.

Two things.

Firstly, your post is a breach of the Member guidelines and expectations:

Member Guidelines and Expactations wrote:Self-censorship is also not accepted, as this shows the content was inappropriate in the first place.

Secondly, while extremely logical in lore of a game like Warhammer 40k, Nuclear weapons really don't make for a productive weapon in a tabletop wargame

Authority would vanish the very moment Shas'el HubbaBubba realizes he has been to more than twice as many battles as O'Shassera and is more than 15 years older because he doesn't have the privilege to sleep in an icebox.

And Warhammer 40k indead uses machines/AIs and weapons of massdestruction. But the latter aren't the wars we fight on our tables

I just thought of Onager Gauntlets as weapon option for XV88s. Boom, Hulkbusters.

thezanji wrote:Hi guys, just wanted to mention that probably our anti-psyker ability will come in the form of the thalisman of arthas moloch.

Looking at age of sigmar for example, i own two armies with no wizards, khorn and stormcasts, and both have antimagic abilities that are objects, a lantern or a demon's collar. So im sure the thalisman will have a very similar text to this:

The bearer of the thalisman of arthas moloch can deny the witch in the same manner as a psyker once in each enemy psychic phase.

So, Games Workshop specifically said that Tau will not get a psyker. However, in Age of Sigmar we do see abilities and items allow non-wizards (for 40k that would be non-psykers) to unbind spells.

In the Indexes so far, any evidence that we're seeing these kinds of abilities? I think Necrons and Dark Eldar get non-psyker anti-psykers... maybe this indicates that more factions will be getting them, like possibly the Tau?

Ricordis wrote:But T'au or at least the Ethereals deny more or less the warp. Wouldn't it be strange if they started to field equipment for that?

They do, but the fluff is also going to advance by 100 years or so. What if there are "secret" upgrades that XV8 pilots carry that they're not even aware of, or Ethereals carry anti-psyker tech (small, other Tau wouldn't notice it) but publicly deny its existence?

I feel like Tau lore is going to change, as it always does, and there have been a few pushes toward giving Tau more contact with Chaos and/or supernatural forces, especially with the Arthas Moloch incident.

Vio'ra Mal'caor wrote:vehicle upgrades, new units, rules for Technical Drones, Less redundancy in 8th rules, removal of whatever the hell Power Level is, addition of Shas'o Kais as a commander, better rules for drones, battlesuit signiture systems, better save for Crisis suits, less use of d3 and d6 for wounds and return of single wound system, better rules for pulse rifle/carbine/pistol, return of all our kickass gear in full glory, removal of manta rules- not everyone can afford a gorram manta GW-, and new weapons and wargear for the new edition.

On a side note, I would also like to see some new IA and rules for FW models in 8th. Alsoe like to see a updated Manta army, as they are still using the original casts. Also like to see someone temper Matt Wanker's obsession with Ultramarines, and remove the frakking imperial Hover Tank that some genius (cough cough, C.S. Goto/Minuscule Weiner, sorry Matt Ward) and also the removal of Rowboat Girlyman. I mean, serously: what were they thinking when they bought back that abomination of a writer.

This isn't a wishlisting thread, and you know 100% that those things aren't happening.

Rather, let's talk about what we know is going to happen. Sept perks. Relics and signature systems. New lore. Possibly a new, small model release.

actually, a lot of those things are possible under GW's new management. We just need to get them listening to us, not the 'Tau creamed me so I went an cried to GW and they listened to my prejudiced view' people. I mean, the only reason they're complaining is becuase they literally suck at playing their chosen faction. The models only do half the work. You do the rest with good tactics and a good attitude.

Star Trek has returned. Imagine enterprise times Movie 5. Then times by cancer. That's how bad this series is.

Vio'ra Mal'caor wrote:actually, a lot of those things are possible under GW's new management. We just need to get them listening to us, not the 'Tau creamed me so I went an cried to GW and they listened to my prejudiced view' people. I mean, the only reason they're complaining is becuase they literally suck at playing their chosen faction. The models only do half the work. You do the rest with good tactics and a good attitude.

I mean, in particular, things like dropping D3/D6 damage rules, dropping Power Level, etc. Those are certainly here to stay, they're a huge part of 8th Edition.

Though I agree- if they listen to us, then yes, we might be able to make some change.

Vio'ra Mal'caor wrote:what is power level by the way? Never encountered it before...

Really? It's one of the major features of 8th Edition. If you look at each datasheet, you'll see a number at the top- that's the unit's "power level." It's a non-granular, unbalanced, simple way of ascertaining how strong a unit is. But if you're at your LGS, and someone wants to play you but doesn't have an army list, you can make a Power Level list in about two minutes, compared to the 30 minute or more that it takes to make a list using traditional Points.

Of course, for actual matched play, always always always use points. But if you're playing a quick game Power Level makes list-building quick and easy.

Ricordis wrote:But T'au or at least the Ethereals deny more or less the warp. Wouldn't it be strange if they started to field equipment for that?

They do, but the fluff is also going to advance by 100 years or so. What if there are "secret" upgrades that XV8 pilots carry that they're not even aware of, or Ethereals carry anti-psyker tech (small, other Tau wouldn't notice it) but publicly deny its existence?

I feel like Tau lore is going to change, as it always does, and there have been a few pushes toward giving Tau more contact with Chaos and/or supernatural forces, especially with the Arthas Moloch incident.

I think it would fit to have it as an upgrade for an Ethereal's hover drone. Fluff could be to have it be a secret device that only the Ethereals know about and they go into battle saying "don't be afraid of the gue'la's tricks, that 'power' is just an illusion" and have the psychic fireball flying towards the Ethereal just sort of dissolve as it approaches them. It wouldn't have to be just straight up giving them deny the witch either. It could be something more unique like giving -2 to any roll to manifest a psychic power within 12" of the Ethereal.

Overheal wrote:I'm not expecting a resculpt of anything with the new release. T'au have seen so much love in the last couple years already, all of our battlesuits are brand new or refreshed up to a couple years. Hammerheads are still fine, as are flyers etc. it would really be the kroot and for reasons I may have explained earlier I think that unless it's a full carnivore squad with plastic hounds, and either a krootox on the spruce or 3 as a kit, I can't imagine what else the army would possibly need right now. ?

Tell you what though, after reading IA Xenia it strikes me hard that Necrons are owed a Titan of some sort.

We don't need 40k. We don't "need" pillows or coffee or cars to live. All we need is food, water, and reproduction. Variety is the spice of life. I always get mad when people say we don't need anything. It sounds like lunacy. We exist... time to climb back into the trees we baked everything possible time to give up on cooking. Who needs fried food or steamed food or all the other variety out there.

That's very slippery slope, isn't it. That kind of logic could be used to justify literally anything, like giving all space marines bolter rounds that do 6 damage per round. Why? Because pillows and coffee.

We theoretically need a good re-balancing to bring us up to mid tier, but that is boring. I want to see new models.

Tau transforming battle suit. Comes with the vehicle model and battlesuit model. Now that is some stylish and classic visual variety added to the army and it would allow for more versatile units.

I don't see this happening, especially given that they're models not Hasbro toys.

XV 22 stealth suits or amass produced version.

Generic stealth suit commander kind of like how we have a generic crisis commander.

Perhaps, if a stealth suit becomes a standard option for a commander.

Mass Effect Biotic/Tech power Psychic powers for Tau or if tat triggers the fundamentalists too much then an auxiliary who does it.

Read recently that GW would not be putting psychic powers in the T'au codex any time soon.

New super heavy tank.

Would be referred to Forgeworld to make.

Helicopter Gunship inspired flyer. Makes two models. The combat one and one with transport capacity. Tau version of the Corvus Blackstar.

So an Orca dropship or a Razor/Sunshark. We already have this.

Vanguard Void Suits (the ones from the FFG thing). Big bulky dudes who's armour can't fly in atmosphere. This is the equivalent of Tau terminator armour and would synergies well with the above hover transport and other transport methods.

Crisis suits are our terminators. Faster and with more firepower.

Next generation XV8. Like the XV8 is the current generation of its class I want to see the next generation of battlesuits and the successor platform. It would start with the next gen crisis equivalent.

We literally just got new, long overdue molds for XV8s last year. The idea that these would be replaced by anything that makes them redundant is wishful thinking. Forgeworld has experimental, next generation battlesuits.

New Tau drones. Not the little disc guys but a beefier chassis that is more like a drone tank that real armies use now but taken up to 40k coolness and scale.

We have Recon drones and we have Remoras. And heavy gun drones. A drone tank would likely have to fill some niche between those, hammerheads, and piranhas.

A new Tau weapon or two that can be put on anything (eventually once enough are made). I think the rail gun right now is great but I want to see a rapid fire version of it that sacrifices some power (but has some devent ap). Finally a more elite choice would be the next generation of rail weapon from a science fiction point. The coil gun which is a bigger, badder, and meaner railrifle.

Would almost necessitate the recreation of all molds for the tau line or to make people buy a new weapons sprue for something that can be fixed instead with tweaking the stats of existing railguns. The bigger badder meaner railrifle is a railgun, the bigger badder meaner railgun is a heavy rail cannon.

Kroot Hunters who use technology fully and are basically a predator ripoff (the movies) but look like beefier kroots who want to return to their glorious hunting past. They would use Tau cloaking for example and have a few units including the elder huntskroot. Weapons style would be things like high tech spears, glaives, toxin dart launchers, light but higher tech armour than their primitive kin, wrist blades, and shoulder mounted plasma blasters or other weapons of choice. The higher rank they are the more relics they can use from other factions. Highly elite and highly customizable release.

Vespid drones. Cheap cheap swarm army. Given cheap neutron guns and pointed at the enemy. Their speciality is to swarm them in melee and when there is large numbers of them they latch onto targets and vibrate causing the enemies to overheat and die. Yes if they heat themselves up enough too long they die, but they are expendable to the queens.

Royal Guards. Big beefy guys with more arms and a huge melee focus. They can fly and fight in melee rather well, but due to their innate instincts have lost a lot of skill with their ranged weapons. They have gained a potent poison sting.

A non lazy Gue'vesa release. I want to see the Gue'vesa get a battlesuit release. Their elite option would be the older version of the XV series updated and retrofitted with modern weaponry. This way the Tau can make use of older stores of weapons, but they aren't giving too valuable stuff out. Perhaps the trusted Gue'vesa officers can have a human tailored XV8. These suits would be melee specialists. A few other models to round out the release.

Demiurg could be their whole own faction, but my creativity juices are trying up right now. So this is it for now.

I could see giving Shapers more wargear options, I do not see shoulder-mounted plasma cannons being realistic. I don't see them turning Vespid into Tyranid-lite either.

Space Marines have a zillion options for modelling but as soon as you the arbiter of what is and isn't Tau comes along. We would be still with our original models under your puritanical view of what should and should not be a model. If we restat everything we literally have no need for anything new for all time army complete but then the sales slow down because the excitement of new models isn't there.

I've seen transforming models from other companies and a lot of people like them. You have one model for one mode and another for the other it's not a toy at all. They are well done and very distinct from GW for doing it too. Oh but you know best of what is and isn't interesting and cool and are the final arbiter on all things. Your giving me some serious Vernon Dusrley vibes.

Go get hired at GW and I might take your viewpoint seriously. For the record I don't care if you take mine seriously I was just having fun with suggestions.

For the record Tyranids incorporate the genes of other creatures into themselves. So no they aren't suddenly Tyranids. Do you think the regular vespids are already nids or something? Do you fail to distinguish them? Of course not they would look like vespid but little small bumblee guys who kinda look cute and then boom dead. In real life there is a Japanese bee that does that to defend its nest from wasps by the way so I kind of figured it would be a neat inspiration for their drones to be able to do since the whole wasp/bee theme going on, but I guess your more creative with your long list of... suggestions... which don't exist. Okay then.

Space Marines already had the Thunderhawk they don't need any sort of actually affordable air transports ppfft that won't break the bank and definitely have trouble fitting on the table. That was sarcasm. We definitely do need a more affordable air transport. Also for a pure visual design we don't have any hovering aircraft which is something the Tau should definitely have considering how valuable helicopter gunships are to the modern military.

The crisis suit was then usurped by the Riptide the coolest model in the Tau army. I want to see cool new Tau suits at some point and if the IoM gets to advance I want to see the next generation Tau suits they've been holding onto. It doesn't invalidate the crisis at all actually. Unlike the old marines who are definitely not getting made anymore the Crisis suit would stay around for its cheapness. I would expect in points the new suits to be very limited and elite.

Jacket, I'm not sure what the personal offense is in saying things like Forgeworld would be the likely source of a superheavy t'au tank, among other simple observations. So, kindly attack the argument, not me.

GW's style of business is not hard to decode, and they not create a new kit that will cannibalize another, successful kit. It is more expensive to create new than support old, so there should be a compelling reason to replace them or expand the range. So, they would have to be crazy to replace a popular model like the XV8 just refreshed the other year, with a newer one, which is v. popular. So what then, do you suggest would be the merit of 'a successor platform' to the XV8, both in a fluff, gameplay, manufacturing and economic sense?

Space Marines have a zillion options, sure, but they also have a much broader customer base. Imperials and Chaos are most gamers worldwide so expanding the range is QED to their success. T'au will get refreshes and new models, sure, but the growth-rate for T'au sales are - Kauyon.

We definitely do need a more affordable air transport. Also for a pure visual design we don't have any hovering aircraft which is something the Tau should definitely have considering how valuable helicopter gunships are to the modern military.

I disagree, because yes in the GW we don't have this (we have the TX7 hull), but when you consider the whole T'au meta, there is the Orca and the Manta. And the Tidewall. What kind of transport are we talking about that bridges the gap between a Crisis suit deep-striking to hovering in a transport 12" off the battlefield/board? That's the first thing: is it something someone has even drawn up? Is it a "suit rack" or is it a piranha-like 'chariot'? What battlefield role does it enhance?

The crisis suit was then usurped by the Riptide the coolest model in the Tau army. I want to see cool new Tau suits at some point and if the IoM gets to advance I want to see the next generation Tau suits they've been holding onto. It doesn't invalidate the crisis at all actually. Unlike the old marines who are definitely not getting made anymore the Crisis suit would stay around for its cheapness. I would expect in points the new suits to be very limited and elite.

That's fine but I feel like that's fulfilled by the forgeworld suits, especially the experimental ones. Thus, in both fluff, and meta, the suits are limited and elite. More FW experimental suits will surely follow.